by Lucy King
His throat dry and his pulse racing, he banged on her door and a second later it swung open and there she was, standing there in a dressing gown, her eyes red and shimmering with unshed tears.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked gruffly, the idea that he could have done that to her, had done that to her stabbing him like a dagger in the chest.
‘I’m fine,’ she replied with a sniff.
Another thought entered his head then, a thought that chilled his blood and for a moment stopped his heart. ‘The baby?’
‘It’s fine, too.’
‘Then why are you crying?’ he demanded, the indescribable relief flooding through him sharpening his tone.
She blew her nose and gave a shrug. ‘Onions.’
He went still. ‘What?’
‘I’ve been chopping onions.’
Right. So. Her tears weren’t because of him. They were because of onions. That was good. Wasn’t it? ‘In a dressing gown?’
She lifted her chin a fraction and arched an eyebrow, and he felt a great thud of lust and love slam through him. ‘In my underwear, if you must know.’
He’d rather not. The images immediately flashing through his head were immensely distracting and did unsettling things to his equilibrium. Nevertheless, as much as he’d like to pull her into his arms, undo the belt and see exactly what she had on beneath, he kept his eyes up and his hands in his pockets. ‘You’ve had your hair cut.’
‘Yes.’
‘It suits you.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I’ve also bought a full-length mirror and am considering a move to Holland.’
The ground beneath his feet shifted. What the hell? ‘Holland?’
She nodded briefly. ‘Holland.’
‘Why?’
‘Why not?’
He knew of a dozen reasons why not. ‘I thought you didn’t travel much.’
She shrugged. ‘Things change,’ she said, and it hit him like a blow to the head that they had. She wasn’t sitting at home pining for him. She was getting her hair cut and buying mirrors. She was moving on. Without him. And it was his own damn fault. He yanked his hands out of his pockets and shoved them through his hair, his heart pounding with the very real fear that he’d blown it for good. ‘Don’t go.’
‘You don’t get to tell me what to do any more, Theo.’
‘I know I don’t.’
‘Then why are you here?’
‘There are so many reasons, I barely know where to start.’
She frowned. ‘Is there a problem with the deal?’
‘No.’
‘Then...?’
‘May I come in?’
‘No,’ she said, folding her arms across her chest and straightening her spine magnificently. ‘Whatever you have to say, you can say it out here.’
‘All right,’ he muttered, beginning to pace in an effort to untangle the jumbled thoughts in his head and calm the panic that he was too late, that he might have already lost her. ‘First of all, I wanted to tell you that you were right.’
‘About what?’
‘Every single point you made in the car. Deep down, I have been afraid of rejection and abandonment and it’s why I’ve always kept people at arm’s length. But the truth is I ache with loneliness. I want to be happy, Kate, and I want what you offered. You. Our child. The chance to be a family.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Because I love you.’
She went very still and when she spoke it was almost a whisper. ‘What did you say?’
‘I love you,’ he said, staring at her unwaveringly, unwilling to miss even a flicker of reaction. ‘And I need you. You have no idea how much. You are incredible.’
She swallowed hard. ‘But you threw me away.’
‘Yes,’ he said, the memory of his careless brutality skewering him.
‘It hurt.’
At the pain in her eyes, his chest tightened as if caught in a vice. ‘I know. And I’m sorry. For all of it. For the way I spoke to you in the car. For blackmailing you in the first place. For everything.’ He cleared his throat. ‘The thing is, Kate, for so long I’ve believed the world is a safer place if I’m alone and that detachment and distance was the only way to achieve that. It always has been.’
He paused and rubbed his hands over his face as he forced himself to continue. ‘My earliest memory is of my father hitting my mother in the face. I can still see her on the floor, him looming over her, huge and angry while she curled up tight. We were terrified every time he came home. I used to wake up to the sounds of crying and shattering glass. I had nightmares. From the youngest age I wanted to protect her, but I couldn’t and the sense of failure and hopelessness was all-consuming. I learned to shut down and switch off, and it became so natural I was barely aware I was doing it, or continued to do it. And, yes, I got out, but not before picking up a lot of other damaging belief, especially the “my way or the highway” approach to doing things, which could be attributed to my success or it could just as well be learned. And that’s another thing. Success is an easy place to hide, and if no one ever challenges you it becomes even easier.’
He looked at her, willing her to understand and to forgive. ‘But you did challenge me, Kate. You do challenge me. At first I tried to resist, tried to control it, but that was always going to be a battle I was going to lose. And I have lost it. Which is fine, because I don’t want to hide behind my hang-ups any more. I want to de-programme and learn to live my life with you and our child. You have no idea how badly I want to meet him or her. I can’t stop thinking about who they’ll look like. I want to be the kind of father I never had. But most of all I want you on my side. By my side. I want everything you have to give and to give you everything you want in return because you deserve to have it.’
He stopped and focused on her, but he couldn’t tell what she was thinking and he went cold, his pulse thudding in his ears and dread whipping through him. ‘But maybe I’m not what you want any more,’ he said, his throat suddenly tight and his voice cracking. ‘Maybe I’m too late. Am I?’
All Kate could do was shake her head. The lump the size of Ireland that was lodged in her throat was preventing her from speaking, and her heart was so full she could barely think. Theo loved her. He wanted her. He’d opened up to her, trusting her with his greatest fears and his deepest vulnerabilities and it was everything she’d dreamed of but thought she’d never have.
‘You’re not too late,’ she said, her voice thick with emotion, the need to dispel the uncertainty in his expression and the tension gripping his large, powerful body all-consuming.
His breath caught. His gaze sharpened. A muscle hammered in his jaw. ‘No?’
‘No.’
‘I am still what you want?’
‘Yes,’ she said with a nod. ‘And more. I love you.’
‘Thank God for that,’ he muttered, striding forward, taking her in his arms and kissing her hard until her head spun and her stomach melted. ‘I really thought I’d screwed up beyond salvation.’
‘What took you so long?’
‘As you may have noticed, I can, on occasion, be rather single-minded.’
She leaned back in his arms and arched an eyebrow. ‘On occasion?’ she asked with a giddy grin.
‘All right. More than on occasion. Once I embark on a course of action I’m not easily derailed. I always know what I’m doing. I always think I’m right. There’s safety and security in that. But then I met you and that was shot to hell. I found myself making reckless suggestions and behaving in ways I didn’t recognise and it terrified me.’ He looked deep into her eyes as if still unable to believe she was there. ‘And then somehow you became the plan,’ he said in wonder. ‘I love you, Kate, and you should know I don’t intend to let you go.’
‘And you should know,’ she said, pressing closer and winding her arms round his neck, ‘tha
t however tough things get, I will never walk away. I will always be on your side.’
‘Will you marry me?’ he asked, his eyes blazing with such love and tenderness that her own began to sting. ‘For real?’
And as happiness burst through her like sunshine she tucked her head into his shoulder and sighed, ‘I will.’
EPILOGUE
Two and a half years later
‘SO APPARENTLY,’ SAID KATE, sticking two candles into the dinosaur cake she’d spent most of the morning making, ‘if you measure a child on its second birthday and double it, that’s the height they’re going to end up being.’
Theo glanced over from where their toddler son was ripping wrapping paper into shreds, his chest filling with emotion as it never failed to do. ‘What’s the verdict?’
‘Five foot eight.’
His eyebrows shot up. ‘Seriously?’
‘No, only joking,’ she said, with a blinding grin that still stole his breath. ‘Six foot four, actually.’
‘That’s my boy.’
And in three months’ time they’d have twin daughters.
Theo didn’t like to think how close he’d come to throwing it all away. If Kate hadn’t given him another chance... If she hadn’t believed in him... But she had and she did. Every single day. The deal had taken a year to finalise, and once it was done, his company was indeed the biggest of its kind. But it wasn’t that that had given him peace. It was his family. Daniel Bridgeman had once called him a lucky man. And he was. He was the luckiest man in the world.
* * *
Adored A Scandal Made in London? You’ll love these other stories by Lucy King!
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The Innocent’s Forgotten Wedding
by Lynne Graham
CHAPTER ONE
MILLY’S HEARTBEAT SPEEDED UP with excitement when she saw Brooke’s name flash across the screen of her cheap mobile because it had been a while since she had heard from her famous and glamorous half-sister.
When Brooke phoned, however, it meant that Brooke needed her and that truth more than made up for Brooke’s often cold and seemingly critical attitude towards her. Milly loved being needed and, in any case, deep down inside, Milly was convinced that her sister cared about her even though she might be too proud to admit it.
After all, why else would Brooke confide in her about so many private things if she did not, at heart, see Milly as a trustworthy friend and sister? Furthermore, aside of each other, neither one of them had a single living relative. Nor was it surprising that Brooke would need her services again when her life was in such turmoil, thanks to that dreadful possessive tyrant of a man she had mistakenly married. What sort of a man would try and come between Brooke and her career? What sort of man would divorce a wife as beautiful and talented as Brooke simply over ugly rumours that she had had an affair?
‘He won’t listen to a word I say!’ Brooke had wept when she’d confided in Milly. ‘He set me up because he wants rid of me. I’m convinced he paid that creep to lure me into a hotel room and lie about having sex with me!’
‘Brooke?’ Milly exclaimed warmly as she answered her phone.
‘I need you to pretend to be me for a few days.’
‘A few...days?’ Milly stressed in dismay, for that request went far beyond anything her sister had asked of her before. ‘Are you sure I’ll be able to manage that? I’m OK until people speak to me and expect me to be you!’
‘You’ll be holed up in a fancy hotel in the heart of London,’ Brooke told her drily. ‘You won’t be required to talk to anyone but room service. You won’t need to leave the room at all.’
Milly frowned. ‘For how long?’ she pressed anxiously.
‘Five or six days. That’s all,’ Brooke informed her briskly.
‘I can’t, Brooke,’ Milly protested apologetically. ‘I’ve got a job and I don’t want to lose it.’
‘You’re a waitress, Milly, not a brain surgeon,’ her half-sister reminded her tartly. ‘You can pick up casual work anywhere at this time of year. And if it’s a matter of me paying your rent again for you, I’ll do it!’
Milly flushed and subsided again because it was true, she could find another job relatively easily, and if Brooke made up her loss of wages to cover the rent on her bedsit as well, she had no grounds for complaint either. When it occurred to her that she had ended up sleeping on a friend’s sofa the last time she’d needed help to cover her rent, she suppressed the memory. Brooke had forgotten to give her the money she had promised but Milly felt that that oversight was her own fault because she had been too embarrassed to remind Brooke. She couldn’t help but shrink from highlighting the financial differences between her and her sister, and wasn’t one bit surprised that Brooke had always refused to be seen in public with her or invite her into her more exciting world even briefly, except in Milly’s guise as a lookalike. What else could she expect? Milly asked herself ruefully. In truth, she was lucky to have any kind of relationship with her sibling at all...
Brooke had first sought out Milly when she was eighteen and fresh out of a council home for foster kids. Milly had already known that she was illegitimate, but she had been shocked by what her newly discovered half-sister had to tell her—well, shocked and initially repulsed by Brooke’s view of the circumstances of her birth. But then, slowly, she had come to understand Brooke’s feelings of betrayal and had forgiven her sister for her offensive wording.
‘Your mother was the slut who almost broke up my parents’ happy marriage!’ Brooke had told her sharply.
To be fair to Brooke, Milly’s mother had been the other woman who slept with a married man, inflicting considerable suffering on that man’s innocent wife and child. Brooke and Milly’s father, William Jackson, a wealthy wine importer, had had a long-running affair with a model called Natalia Taylor and had threatened to leave his wife over her.
Sadly, a heart attack had taken William’s life when Brooke was fifteen and Milly was nine. Natalia had died in a bus crash only a couple of years later and Milly had ended up in council care, where she had remained until she reached eighteen. At first meeting, both young women had been taken aback by the likeness between them, for they had both inherited their father’s white-blonde curly hair and dark blue eyes. Milly, however, had had a large bump in her nose and somehow the features that made Brooke a stunning beauty had blurred in Milly’s case, putting her into the pretty rather than beautiful category.
It had been Brooke’s idea that she could use Milly as a stand-in either to avoid an event she considered boring or, more frequently, to mislead the paparazzi that dogged her footsteps and who occasionally followed her places where she didn’t want to be seen or photographed her with individuals whom she didn’t wish to be seen with. Brooke was obsessed with airbrushing and controlling the public image she wanted to show the world.
In the same way she had pointed out that Milly couldn’t help her unless she was prepared to go that extra mile and have her nose ‘done’ so that it mirrored Brooke’s far more elegant nose. At first, Milly had said a very firm no to that idea, not because she was fond of her less than perfect nose but just because it was hers and she was accustomed to her own flaws.
Brooke had had a huge row with her over her refusal and Milly had been devastated when her half-siste
r had cut off all contact with her. When Brooke had called her again six weeks later, Milly had been so grateful to hear from her that she had agreed to the surgical procedure and before she could change her mind she had been whisked into a private clinic and her nose had been skilfully enhanced to resemble Brooke’s. Once that had been achieved, expert make-up had completed her transformation.
The first time Milly had pretended to be Brooke to enable her sister to evade a boring charity event, she had been terrified, even dressed in her sister’s clothes and made up to look like her, but nobody had suspected a thing and, for the first time in her life, Milly had felt like an achiever. Brooke’s gratitude had made her feel wonderfully warm inside and the second time, when Milly had had to simply step out of a limousine and walk into a shop while Brooke was many miles away, she had felt even better. She had discovered that it was fun to dress up in expensive clothes and pretend to be someone she was not and there had been very little fun in Milly’s life before Brooke entered it.
And with Brooke in her current predicament, struggling to deal with her broken marriage, Milly knew that she should definitely go that extra mile for her sister. ‘Where will you be while I sit in this hotel?’ she asked curiously.
‘Having a very discreet little holiday, so I’ll need your passport,’ Brooke advanced. ‘I daren’t travel on my own.’
And Milly frowned at that reference to her passport but could only smile at the mention of a holiday. A holiday was exactly what her poor sister needed at this stressful time in her life and if Milly room-sitting in some fancy hotel was all that was required, it would be utterly selfish of her to refuse to help. ‘OK. I’ll do it.’
